


Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

by chewysugar



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Deal with a Devil, Deus Ex Machina, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Fluff and Angst, M/M, No Smut, Post-Doctor Strange (2016), Spideypool - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8846101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: It's Christmas Eve, and Wade is stumped trying to find a last-minute gift for Peter. Naturally, a visit from Mephisto is in order, and Wade just might be crazy in love enough to agree to the demons terms.





	

As far as the jolly holidays went, Wade tended to agree with Ebenezer Scrooge that it was usually just a time of year for finding oneself a year older and not an hour richer. Given that N*Sync had been on mainstream radio the last time Wade had found himself either of those things, Christmas was generally just another day for him, albeit one with repetitive music and discount sales on _Barefoot_ wine.

**(A Canadian vintage, and I challenge anyone to find a better wine.)**

However skeptical he was of such things as tidings of comfort and joy, he was still a flexible person, and the special thing he’d found with the most important person in his life had changed his perspective on a few things, Christmas among them.

**(The other being my opinion on the British Royal Family and public sex.)**

**_((Sigh…I knew I wasn’t going to get away without you interrupting this time.))_ **

**(I’m a Golden Globe nominee now, I can do whatever I want.)**

It was a testament to the strength of Wade’s devotion to Peter that he found himself sitting on the lap of a man in a red and white suit. Usually when he was in such a predicament it was due to a seriously screwed up hallucination involving him sitting on his own lap in full Deadpool regalia and talking about childhood fears.

Now, though, he was clearly in the real world, and the old man in red and white wasn’t a result of psychosis, but a portly chap with a fluffy white beard and round glasses.

“I’ve never done this before,” Wade said, shifting to fit his whole steely frame a little more comfortably on Santa Claus’s lap. “Uh, I really hope that’s a candy cane I feel bumping into my thigh, by the way.”

Wade scratched his forehead. One of the many, many perks that had come from being with Peter this last year and a bit was that he didn’t feel entirely vulnerable being in public with his face exposed. “I guess it all started when I was nine,” Wade said to Santa Claus. “My father refused to take me to the circus. I was a very fragile child and-- 

“Ho, ho, ho! I’m not a therapist, young man!” Santa laughed, his twinkling eyes looking at Wade a little less jovially than Wade thought appropriate for the patron saint of children and generosity.

“Oh.” Wade frowned. “Then I guess I can skip over what Billy McKenzie and I got up to at summer camp when I was fourteen.”

**(If anyone is curious it involved…a lot of mutual masturbation.)**

**_((That was very thoughtful of you.))_ **

Santa Claus gave another laugh, all deep and belly rich. Wade didn’t find it too hard to understand why so many little brats the world over trusted the man, even if the strange protrusion pressing against his calf was making him feel a little warm under the collar of his turtleneck.

“Well what the Frosty the Snowman _do_ people do up here, anyway?”

“Ho, ho, ho! They tell me what they want for Christmas, young man! And as you can see, there are a lot of people waiting to do just that!” Santa pointed with a gloved hand at the obscenely long line of shoppers snaking down _Candy Cane Lane_. Most of them were shooting Wade impatient, filthy looks, as if it were Wade’s fault for wanting to get straight to the source when it came to his Christmas conundrum.

“Well, the thing is Mister Claus—may I call you that, by the way? The thing is, it’s not really me I’m here for. It’s for my boyfriend. I don’t really know what to get him.”

It felt awful to admit it, especially to the head honcho of the holidays. But the truth was, Wade had drawn blanks ever since the notion of what to get Peter for Christmas had hit him on Black Friday.

**(A holiday that I am morally, financially and religiously opposed to.)**

Wade had never cared dick for the holiday before, primarily because there hadn’t been anyone to give presents to or get presents from. But this year things had changed, and changed on such a level that it made him feel simultaneously terrified and on top of the entire world. He’d not only found himself thinking of the holidays as they drew nearer and nearer, but actually anticipating them. He and Peter had decorated their loft apartment to the nines, and Wade had found himself more than once humming some Christmas carol or other under his breath.

At first he’d thought his numerous mental issues had added another layer to his insanity. He’d confided his doubts to Peter—about how he felt warmth in his chest whenever he saw a Christmas wreath; how he’d felt a sudden, inexplicable need to drop a quarter into a Salvation Army bucket. And Peter had laughed those fears away in that amazing, understanding way of his.

“That’s Christmas spirit, baby--you’ve been bitten by the holiday bug. Good thing it wasn’t radioactive or you’d be shooting tinsel out of your wrists.”

Wade had coasted with the alien tide of the warm fuzzies he’d felt for the month of December. Most of his nights had been spent cozying up with Peter, eating Chinese takeout and watching Christmas movies on TV. And that was only when he and Peter weren’t fighting off the cold that had swept over the Big Apple in their own way.

Peter had been the biggest reason for that feeling—for a lot of feelings Wade had felt since they’d gotten together, and if there was one thing that Wade knew about Christmas—aside from the lyrics to every song on Mariah Carey’s first holiday album—it was that it was a time to show the people you loved how much you loved them.

He just didn’t have any idea how, and that had brought him here, to the source of all holiday joy.

Santa Claus fixed Wade with a piercing look over his glasses. “Ho, ho, ho! Well, what kinds of things does your boyfriend like, sonny?”

Wade wracked his brain for a moment. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the elves flanking the crimson carpeted steps to the big, plushy, red chair where Santa Claus sat, giving him the stink-eye. “Well,” Wade said after a long pause, “he’s kind of a nerd, but like, a really cool and cute nerd.”

“Ho, ho, ho! Why don’t I get him a computer game then!”

“No, no,” Wade said with a shake of his head. “He’s already got a lot of those. I mean, he likes reading too. And he’s a big fan of _Game of Thrones_. Hey, maybe you could get him one of George R. R. Martin’s beard hairs!”

Santa Claus only laughed, shifting once more so that the hard stub that had been prodding against Wade’s leg dug back in with a vengeance. “I don’t think I can do that sonny. And I think you ought to get a move on. There are lots of other kiddies waiting their turn.”

“But you’re Santa Claus!” Wade was finding it hard to keep his irritation under wraps, although that could have been due entirely to what he was sure was _not_ a candy cane poking into the back of his knee. “Surely you’ve gotta have something you can give Peter!”

From somewhere towards the front of the line a voice with a thick Jersey accent said, “Give ‘em a freaking teddy bear! Just get the hell of Santa’s lap and give the kids a turn.”

“Hey now!” Wade craned his neck, looking for a guilty face. “That’s no way to talk to someone on Christmas, friendo! It’s all about chestnuts roasting on an open fire and all that jazz.”

“You don’t shuffle off,” Jersey voice said, “and it’ll be _your_ nuts roasting over an open fire!”

**(Really? Referencing your own fanfic in this?)**

**_((More specifically, I’m referencing_ The Extraordinary Spider-Man _, which can be read on AO3 and FanFiction.net for those people who don’t care for that no-good, twisty face, imitation toss pot of a Spider-Man, Tom Holland, whose performance and films I could care less about, and whose upcoming film I do not wish to see, no, not one iota.))_**

**(Tell me how you really feel, why don't you.)**

Wade’s immediate instinct was to reach for some kind of weapon to silence the rude guido. It wouldn’t have taken a great deal of imagination to fling one of the many silver stars that festooned the Christmas tree to the left of Santa’s chair into the bastard’s jugular. Unfortunately, the elves flanking the big, comfy chair had reached the end of their patience. They converged, and Wade, surprised by this rough, un-elf like treatment, didn’t have time to do much aside from glance down at Santa’s lap before he was tossed away from the North Pole and onto the hard linoleum floor of Manhattan Mall.

Bewildered at this rough handling, Wade sat up straight and stared as a ten-year old boy in Crocs hopped up onto the place he himself had occupied less than ten seconds ago. “Be careful kid,” he called. “Something tells me that guy isn’t the genuine article! And that’s definitely not an erection in his pocket, but it might be a handgun. Thirty caliber judging from the bruise on my leg. 

Nobody paid him the slightest attention. All around him the mall was a veritable wasp’s nest of hurried, last minute holiday shoppers. What had started as a rage likely to soon turn into a Pearl Harbor level outburst—

**(Dude! Not funny!)**

\--soon died, replaced with an almost childish helplessness.

He couldn’t go home to Peter empty-handed, not when he knew for a fact that his beloved bug boy had already gotten him something for Christmas. Wade had seen the pile of wrapped boxes under the little tree in their loft, and he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he didn’t find a gift in return.

Peter deserved that after everything that he’d done for Wade since they’d fallen in love.

Dusting himself off, Wade got to his feet. Deciding that it would be better to do some window shopping for the sake of sowing ideas, Wade joined the exodus of Christmas shoppers moving through the mall. He kept his eyes peeled, glancing at each store window and finding nothing of note.

He’d just made up his mind to make his way back to the North Pole and have another round with jolly, old Saint Nicholas, possibly incognito, when what to his wandering eyes did appear but a large sale banner in the window of _Best Buy_.

Wade’s knowledge of technology went about as far as weaponry. When it came to computers and other gadgets, Peter was the go-to guy.

**(He’s also the go-to guy for another type of gadget, if you know what I mean...and by that, I mean his penis.)**

Santa Claus had suggested a computer game, but what Wade saw advertised in the window of North America’s favorite electronics retailer wasn’t a game, but a tablet. Peter’s own _Samsung Note_ had bit the dust several weeks previously in a fight with some gangbangers in Brooklyn.

Feeling as giddy as if he’d just sucked back an entire carton of eggnog with Captain Morgan, Wade pressed through the crowd in the mall and hurried into the _Best Buy_. A new tablet would be perfect; it was expensive, yes, but as far as Wade could tell, the pricier something was the more it meant when given as a Christmas present.

In any case, the tablet was practical. Peter would be so happy, possibly happy enough to spend the bulk of Christmas Day getting happy under the sheets.

**(Sing it with me now: jingle balls, jingle balls, Pete’s an awesome lay!)**

Wade found the shelf where the tablet was and felt his eternally diseased blood run cold. There was a tag on the shelf reading “ _Only one left in stock.”_ Fuming, Wade looked around for one of the employees, the closest of whom was chatting with an elderly woman and her bored-looking, teenage granddaughter.

The _Best Buy_ geek gave Wade a brief, if startled nod, and Wade chose to ignore the gut reaction of self-consciousness. It was better to be acknowledged under the circumstances and judged for his scars than to be completely ignored.

However, it seemed as if the employee’s momentary distraction had drawn the attention of the diminutive, besweatered senior citizen. She turned her enormous spectacles to Wade and said, “You just wait your turn, young man!”

Wade frowned. “I was planning on it.”

The _Best Buy_ geek looked nervous. Clearly they’d seen enough squabbling since Black Friday and wanted to keep the peace. “Oh, is there anything you need? I can get one of my co-workers to give you a hand.”

“Well actually, I was hoping to pick up the last Samsung Fablet for my—OUCH! FUCK A DONUT; SWEET BABY JESUS AND JOSEPH AND MARY, THAT HURT!” The old lady had whacked Wade in the side of the head with her alarmingly heavy purse.

“The Fablet is ours, young man! We got here first and we’re going to get it!”

Grimacing as he massaged his head, Wade said, “The only reason I’m not going to knock your dentures in is because you remind of Queen Elizabeth.”

**(I miss Lady Di.)**

**_((Don’t we all.))_ **

The old woman’s granddaughter roller her eyes and, with typical teenaged disaffection, said, “Ugh, grandma, we totally should have just pre-ordered it.”

The woman gave her granddaughter a piercing glare. “Shut the fuck up, you stupid cunt, before I break your neck in half.”

Wade’s jaw dropped, a feat that was remarkable in and of itself given that he’d seen, heard and done things to give Harmony Korine nightmares. “Lady, what is wrong with you?”

“I’m not going to be outdone by you, pizza-puss.” The woman snapped. “We got to this little toadie first, and that electronic kajigger is ours!”

The _Best Buy_ tech looked highly affronted. “I’m an associate,” they said waspishly.

Before Wade could do something regrettable—namely knock the old broad out of her Depends—a loud voice over the intercom said, “Attention _Best Buy_ Shoppers: due to a clerical error, I regret to inform you that we are currently sold out of the _Samsung Cosmos Fablet_ and do not, in fact, have only one left in stock. For anyone looking to purchase it as a holiday gift, say, for their boyfriend of a year and a bit, it must suck to be you right about now, huh?”

The year that Adele had won a metric and imperial shit ton of Grammy’s for her seminal album, “ _21_ ,” Wade had had the misfortune of being upper-cutted into a vat of hydrochloric acid. He’d escaped, albeit just barely, but the sensation hadn’t been pleasant, and he hadn’t been able to hear “Set Fire to the Rain,” without getting anxious since.

Now, with the announcement having shattered his last-ditch attempt to find the perfect gift for the man he loved, Wade felt that awful feeling once more: an intense sensation of his skin slowly being dissolved.

He didn’t even notice when the crotchety old bat and her ornery progeny started screaming at the unfortunate associate. Numbly, he walked out of the _Best Buy_ and into the general hubbub of the mall. As if some omniscient power had taken notice of his life, “Mistletoe,” by Colbie Caillat started playing over the mall radio.

**(Hey, wait a minute…)**

It wasn’t fair. Here he was with the last hours of Christmas Eve slipping through his fingers and he had nothing to give the man who’d made his hell of a life so extraordinary.

**(What!? Christmas Eve and I don’t have a present for my Petey? You said things would work out!)**

**_((We never shook hands on it.))_ **

Still feeling dazed Wade left the mall. He didn’t know what else to do with himself. Outside, New York City was alive with the spirit of the season. Strings of beautiful lights were festooned from the lampposts; in keeping with the sanctity of the song, silver bells rang out on every street corner. Snow fell gently from the sky like feathery down, dusting the streets and buildings in a lower of icing sugar-like powder.

None of it reached Wade. All the merriment and warmth he’d allowed himself to absorb since the beginning of the season was leaving him with each misty puff of his breath. Suicide would have been preferable to the fleeting images of Peter’s disappointed face the next morning. Wade supposed he could offer some mind-blowing sex to make up for the lack of gift, but somehow the notion seemed too empty.

He wanted something meaningful, something that Peter would cherish.

Then he got an idea.

An awful idea.

Wade got a wonderful, awful idea.

**(Oy, with the Dr. Seuss.)**

Material things were all fine and dandy if one was Madonna circa 1986. But Peter deserved more than some fancy gadget for their first Christmas together. Capitalism had failed him; his visit to the man in the red suit had left him empty-handed. But there was another avenue to explore; another man in red who was known for giving people what they wanted. And given that Wade couldn’t die, it wasn’t as if he had to fear trading his life for Peter’s perfect Christmas present.

Seized by the ingenuity of his idea, Wade raced down the crowded sidewalk of 6th Avenue to an abandoned alley. Then he scaled the fire escape of a Korean barbecue until he found himself looking down on the living Thomas Kinkade painting below him. It wouldn’t be any good to go calling the powers that he was seeking in view of the general public.

He waited with baited breath, trying to ignore the distant sound of a church bell as it tolled ten at night. There were only two hours to go until it was officially Christmas Day, and Wade didn’t want to waste any more time than was absolutely necessary.

The first sign that he wasn’t alone on the rooftop was a brief spike in the temperature of the air behind him. There was a smell of brimstone, and a momentary aura of power and evil that made Wade think of childhood.

**(I’d be offended if that wasn’t the truth as I know it, and therefore the Christian truth.)**

A voice that sounded like oil and smoke said, “Isn’t this a pleasant holiday surprise? And just when I was starting to get terribly bored.”

Resigning himself to the fact that this interview wouldn’t be pleasant, but knowing that he was doing it for Peter, Wade turned to face his visitor.

“Meph. You look…red, as usual.”

“Indeed.” Mephisto crossed the roof, his feet burning cloven prints into the snow. Cloaked in red, he looked like a veritable patron of the holiday, or at least he would have had it not been for the glowing, acid-yellow eyes, carnivorous leer and prehensile forked tail that slashed through the air behind him.

Closing the space between them, the demon king raked Wade with a curious stare.

“Between killing Bowie and Prince, Brexit and the American election, this has been a most interesting year. But this?” Mephisto’s tail slithered around Wade’s leg, and it was all the merc could do to not reach down and snap the appendage in half. “This is quite unexpected.”

“Have you thought about renting your likeness out to the front of Christmas cards? Because you are just precious.” Wade wasn’t about to let the evil bastard see how uncomfortable he was; Mephisto was here on his terms, and no amount of weird, hentai tentacle groping was going to make Wade back down.

Mephisto smirked, and Wade was sure he knew exactly what had crossed his mind. “So tell me,” the demon said, “what is it that you’re willing to trade something precious for? A miracle cure for your diseases? A return to the skin you used to have?”

“Hardly.” Wade grimaced as he felt the demon, now hovering over his shoulder, wind his tail towards his groin. “You’re slithering that tail in all the wrong places, by the way. I’ve had creepier sexual encounters in Sheboygan.” With difficulty, Wade extricated himself from Mephisto’s grip and faced him with his arms folded.

**(Y’know, for a second there, I was really worried that this was going to turn into one of “those” fanfics.)**

“I want a Christmas present for my boyfriend,” Wade said.

Mephisto arched what on his hellish visage accounted for an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“I need something special. Something that’ll really make him happy.” Wade took a deep breath. He’d only been mulling over it for ten minutes, and voicing it only made the impact of just what it was that he was asking for seem all the more outrageous. “I want you to bring Ben Parker back to life.”

If there was anything that could have made Mephisto all the more nightmarish, it was the smile that he gave Wade then. “Interesting. Selfless, certainly. Especially seeing as it’s coming from you of all people. But you know that I can’t give something for nothing.”

“I didn’t fall off the turducken truck yesterday.” Wade forced himself to meet the demon’s luminous eyes. “You give me this and you get me. I’ll be your long right claw; your whipping boy; your general. I’ll kill anyone and anything you need, provided that it’s not anyone from the British Royal Famil—

Mephisto let out a laugh so insidious that Wade was surprised the air around the two of them didn’t erupt with a legion of fell spirits. “You think I’m in need of the service of a mere speck like you? That’s a paltry thing to ask in exchange for what you want from me.”

Wade swallowed the sudden dread in his throat. “But…you’ll do it?”

“Oh, of course I’ll do it. But in exchange, you will give me something far more precious. Something that you will sorely miss for the rest of your near-eternal life.”

In the blink of an eye the demon was standing mere inches away from Wade’s face. “You will give me the very reason you have for calling me here. Benjamin Parker will indeed be resurrected. And in exchange, you will disappear from Peter Parker’s life forever. He will know pure and utter happiness with the return of the man he lost all those years ago. And you will be forgotten, forced to watch from the outside with nothing but the memory of the man who stole your heart.”

**(What kind of fucked up, convoluted, jump-the-shark, fan-base breaking, self-servicing, Joe Quesada meshuganas is this?!)**

Only then did Wade’s gaze waver. Of all the pain he’d experienced in his life, losing Peter was one that he knew he’d never be able to cope with.

But to be _lost_ to him? To simply be erased from his life, forced to bear the weight of every happy memory—every kiss and touch—all while Peter continued on as if nothing had ever happened? Wade felt as if a vice were squeezing at his heart at the very thought of it.

And yet…to make Peter happy would be worth every last painful moment. In any case, it wasn’t as if Wade would vanish from the face of the Earth; he’d simply cease to be a part of Peter’s life, and it wasn’t as though he couldn’t charm his way back into it again.

Snow swirled at his feet as a chill wind picked up. Flakes still fell gently from the sky, starkly contrasting with the evil vision in red standing in front of Wade.

Taking a deep breath, Wade nodded, trying to ignore the numb panic threatening to eclipse his mind. “Alright. I accept.” He held out his hand, prepared for everything that had made his life so wonderful to disappear once he made contact with Mephisto’s clawed fingers.

**(Do you want me to cry? Is that what you want? DO YOU WANT TO SEE ME CRY RIGHT NOW?!)**

Fleeting images of these last months passed in front of Wade’s eyes—of days spent by Peter’s side, laughing and talking and kissing. He grasped at them, knowing that they would be all he had in a matter of seconds.

He waited for Mephisto to take his outstretched hand…and waited. Wade stared at the slyly grinning demon before him. In fact, he soon realized that all he could do was stare. He couldn’t move, his hand still held out in supplication between himself and the lord of Hell. The snow falling around them was frozen in mid-fall.

Time itself had stopped.

As soon as this startling realization crossed Wade’s mind there was a bright flash of emerald light from behind him. Someone crunched through the snow and a moment later a tall man with cropped dark hair and a neatly styled beard strode passed him.

There was something about this strange newcomer that immediately made Wade feel as if he were in the presence of someone greater than even the crimson demon in front of him. Perhaps it was his imposing height, or the purposeful way he moved; it could have been his clothes, a billowing scarlet cape and a royal blue tunic tied with a leather sash.

All these were physical observations, taken within the first few frozen seconds of Wade’s catching sight of the stranger. He only knew that the man was someone to be revered when, upon coming between Wade and Mephisto, he tapped at the air in front of him as if shooing away a speck of sand.

The entire scene from Mephisto onward splintered like a smashed mirror so that Wade saw everything—demon, sky and buildings—in a vast ocean of fragmented sight. If Wade could have shouted in surprise he would have—he’d never seen anything this out there before, and he’d once had to bear witness to a ceremonial orgy between the Sub-Mariner and a battalion of fish-people.

The strange man whirled around and seized Wade by his outstretched wrist. Then he moved his hand in a circle in the space beside them. A swirling green vortex opened, and Wade could just make out a familiar, darkened room at the center of it.

Then he was being tugged forward into the portal, and the next second he was in his and Peter’s loft apartment, nearly tumbling into the Christmas tree by the TV.

“Wha—what the fuck?” The voice that spoke wasn’t Wade’s or the strange man’s. It was Peter’s.

Wade straightened himself up, staring at Peter’s alarmed face with mingled guilt and relief. Peter was wearing his usual pajamas of t-shirt and boxers, and the fact that Wade had nearly signed their love over for a Christmas present made Peter look even more beautiful to him. He crossed the room and threw his arms around Peter who, although he reciprocated, seemed frozen with confusion.

The strange man spoke, his voice a deep, liquid timber that sounded like if Sherlock Holmes had had a lovechild with a dragon from a film adaptation of a J.R.R. Tolkien novel.

**(Oh my gentle Jesus, it’s Bandicoot Copacabana!)**

“Nothing should ever make you resort to making a deal with Mephisto.”

Wade felt Peter stiffen in his arms—

**(Ooh la la.)**

\--stiffen in his arms, and not in a particularly sexual way.

**(Damn it all!)**

Wade scowled at the magical, deep-voiced stranger. “Way to blow my cover there, Merlin.”

“Doctor Strange,” the man said. “And you’re very lucky I was keeping an eye on things or you’d have lost more than your relationship.”

“What?!” Peter squirmed out of Wade’s embrace, his puppy-dog brown eyes blazing with hurt and disbelief.

“Mephisto never keeps his end of the bargain,” Doctor Strange said. “And if I hadn’t caught him by surprise you’d be in for an eternity of torture.” Doctor Strange circled his hand through the air, opening another green vortex. “Consider this my Christmas gift to the two of you.”

“But wait!” Wade said. “What does it matter to you if I’d made that bargain? I’m not all that special, Mister Doctor.”

“Doctor Strange.”

“Doctor Who?”

“No, not him.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Doctor Strange eyed Wade and Peter, who was staring at the floor with his arms around himself. After a moment’s pause in which the lights from the green vortex dancing across Doctor Strange’s face made Wade think about how the man might look naked, he said, “Let’s just say that I have an emotional investment. I ship the two you, I believe is what the young people say these days. You stay away from Mephisto, or I might not be as generous with my deus ex machine act next time.” And with that he stepped through the portal, which disappeared behind him, and was gone.

Horrible silence followed Doctor Strange’s departure. Peter was still staring at the floor, looking like he couldn’t quite determine whether the linoleum at his bare feet was real or not. For his part Wade felt as if he’d waltzed into the room and decapitated a live corgi. 

He couldn’t bear the thought of Peter being upset with him, and given that he’d been one bad decision away from blowing up everything they’d worked for, Wade wanted to smooth things over as smoothly as possible. But the words failed him once he managed to sift through his guilt to find them. So, with a bravado that he didn’t at all feel, he said, “Hey, did that guy give off a total Heathcliff vibe to you, or am I just reading into it too much?”

Peter glared in response. “Wade,” he said warningly, his voice like ice.

“More importantly, why does every single high school teacher insist on making their class read _Wuthering Heights_ when _Fifty Shades of Grey_ is basically the same thing?”

Wade could tell that turning on the charm wasn’t going to work this time. He wondered if he’d grossly overestimated his ability to win Peter back had he not been spared Mephisto’s bargain by Doctor Strange.

The only light in the loft came from the Christmas tree and the lights that snaked around each broad window. Wade couldn’t so much see Peter’s hurt as he could feel it, like waves of frigid, piercing water.

**(Christ, that was poetic. Why haven’t you published a book yet?)**

**_((I tried but the ten agents I sent my manuscript to said it was too much gay sex for a young adult audience.))_ **

“Pete--”

“No.” Peter’s voice had an awful finality. It took a lot to get him to this level of anger, and Wade was terrified that in being saved from making things worse, he’d actually played a part in a self-fulfilling prophecy. “What the fuck would make you want to put us up as a bargain with that—that _thing_?”

It was such a simple word, and yet the vehemence with which Peter spoke it felt like a slap to the face. Wade flinched, feeling hot shame creep into ever pore of his body.

“I just…I wanted to get you something for Christmas.” He sounded so pathetic, but that was the power that Peter had over him. One that, although it hurt like the worst pain in moments like this, Wade realized he was a complete imbecile for having thought of trading away.

Peter let out a mirthless laugh. “A Christmas present? Seriously? And tell me what the hell is wrong with a pair of socks? Or a goddamn gift card? Jesus, Wade, what were you even going to get out of that? A new gaming console? ‘Cause that is so not worth it it’s not even the sad kind of funny.”

Wade felt like a punctured balloon, but he made himself look Peter in the eye. They were only separated by four feet of space, but at that moment it seemed like they were in alternate dimensions.

“No,” he said quietly. “I…I was going to get him to bring Uncle Ben back…for you…”

Whatever rage Peter had been feeling disappeared like melting snow. “What?”

“I wanted to get you something that nobody else could,” Wade sighed, realizing just how ridiculous that sounded. “I mean, yeah, I guess a gift card or something would have been an easier choice, but you deserve better than that.”

Wade expected to be given the third degree. After all, what else would a spectacular fuck-up like him deserve?

**(Thanks for that.)**

Peter pushed himself off the counter and walked away. Just when Wade was resigning himself to the fact that he’d be waking up Christmas morning on the couch—or possibly worse—he felt Peter slap something on the top of his head.

“What the lump?” Wade prodded what felt like a plastic adhesive gift bow.

He stared at Peter, who was watching him with the first smile Wade had seen on him since he’d come through Doctor Strange’s hole.

**(Giggity.)**

“I don’t get it,” Wade said, nonplussed.

Peter chuckled. “ _You’re_ my Christmas present, you big dope. You said you wanted to get me something nobody else could? Well, what do you think you are to me Wade? There’s nobody like you—nothing like you, either. And if you were willing to make a Faustian deal with Mephisto just to make me happy…well, it does piss me off a little, but it’s also one of the kindest things anyone’s ever tried to do for me.”

Wade had learned not to fight against his emotions since being with Peter. He felt himself starting to get teary-eyed, and before he could make an even bigger mess of their Christmas by bursting into tears, he sank to his knees before Peter and wrapped his arms around his waist.

“Aw Tiger,” he said, burying his face in Peter’s tummy. “You’re really too damn good for me.”

“And don’t you go forgetting it, mouthpiece.”

Wade glanced at the clock over the stove. It was a quarter passed midnight, which meant that although the sun wouldn’t be up for hours, it was technically Christmas morning. He looked up at Peter. “We better get into bed or we’ll catch the man in the red suit coming down our chimney.”

Peter smirked. “Isn’t it just a wicked coincidence that both of our suits are red?”

“Guess we’re going to find out whose chimney is going to get the coming down.”

“You know it’s going to be yours.” Peter flicked the bow off of Wade’s head, and Wade got to his feet. In next to no time he and Peter were under the covers of their Queen size. As the snow continued to fall and the lights of the tree twinkled merrily, Wade fully let himself feel just how much he loved the incredible man whose touch and kiss and taste made him feel warmer than any Christmas gift ever would.

**(Hey, what in the name of Sally Jesse Raphael was that?)**

_**((Deadpool interrupted my narrative flow. I’m agog with surprise.))** _

**(You just glossed over the sex scene, you big Puritan school marm!)**

_**((I have written crock-shits of explicit stories this year and I’m starting to feel a little redundant. You want butt sex, go read everything else on my works page.))** _

He felt Peter’s heartbeat against his chest—felt the warmth of his skin as they lay in the near darkness of their home. And for the first time, Wade felt an overwhelming sense of thankfulness for everything—for their pokey little apartment and their modest little Christmas tree; for Peter especially, and for the fact that he’d been saved from throwing it all away. 

Wade placed a soft kiss on the side of Peter’s head. In spite of Peter’s easy, even breathing, Wade could tell that he wasn’t asleep. “Hey Tiger?”

“Hm?”

“What’d you get me for Christmas?”

“Gonna have to wait til tomorrow to find out babe. That’s how it works.” Still, Peter apparently couldn’t resist the lure Wade had laid out. He smirked through the near-darkness and said, “Would you believe I tried to make a deal with Mephisto to cure you in exchange for our relationship?”

Wade stared at Peter in disbelief. “You’re shitting me, I hope.”

Peter shook his head, looking a little ashamed. “I couldn’t decide on the right gift. Luckily for both of us, Doc Strange isn’t above going up to bat twice.”

**(Oh, so now we’re going for a goddamn _Gift of the Magi_ pastiche. Lovely.)**

Wade sighed, relaxing into the pillows and the feeling of having the man he loved nestled so perfectly in his arms. “Yeah. It’s a regular Christmas miracle.” It was almost ridiculous, and yet, before he fell asleep, Wade couldn’t quite help but smile to himself at the fact that both he and Peter were willing to go to such absurd extremes over simple Christmas gifts for each other.

If that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was.

**Author's Note:**

> On behalf of myself, chewysugar and Peter, I wish you all a very Merry Fourth Quarter holiday and a Happy New Year! See you in 2017 for more stories featuring myself--Deadpool--and my beautiful little bundle of booty, Peter Parker. If chewysugar knows what is good for him, there will be smut. And lots of it. I mean, we're going to need it given the state of the world stage at the moment.


End file.
